As is well known and understood, such law enforcement personnel as civilian and military police, corrections officers, border patrol, etc. usually carry on their person the typical "tools-of-the-trade"--namely, their weapon, their baton, their handcuffs, chemical sprays to subdue assailants, their note-pad, and other items needed for purposes of protection and/or for daily police use. One such item, however, which has been noted to create problems as well as being helpful, is the flashlight employed by many such enforcement personnel--typically being of some 5 pounds in weight, and some 18-24 inches long. In nighttime use, as an illustration, the police personnel are oftentimes called upon to review identification and/or other papers handed to them by a person being questioned, and in doing so, it is not unusual for the officer to hold the flashlight, then lit, under the arm, in the armpit, shining down on the papers the officer looks through. On several occasions, though, the person being questioned has responded by grabbing the flashlight from the armpit area where it was temporarily held, and attempted to use it as a weapon against the interrogating officer. With the officer holding the paperwork in his, or her, hands at such time, an immediate disadvantage to the questioning personnel results, and the officer is placed in serious harm's way.
Additionally, such nighttime use places the officer in jeopardy in yet another way. Frequently, for example, with this interrogation of paperwork taking place at a vehicular stop--even where the officer is holding the flashlight fast in hand--oncoming motorists notice the vehicles parked alongside the road, and become distracted away from the scene of the interrogation where both the officer and the other person, or persons, are standing. Instances have been well recorded of these oncoming vehicles running into the officer or the other people there.
In both these instances, it would be desirable to protect the officer who is only doing his, or her, job--from circumstances where the carrying out of their sworn responsibilities exposes them to the possibility of injury, if not death.